


Gravity is working against me

by ferggirl



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferggirl/pseuds/ferggirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons is the one secret Grant Ward keeps from everyone.  </p>
<p>Events from "Providence" and just after. Angsty half-naked kissing included.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity is working against me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [always_a_queen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_a_queen/gifts).



"I don’t think even Romanoff could have pulled that off!"

Garrett laughs, and Grant grins along with him. 

It’s been a long slog, hiding beneath the unknowable skin of the loner agent with a heart of gold. Garrett had warned him, before he sent him to Coulson’s plane, that deep cover was going to be a challenge. 

"I can handle it," he’d said confidently then. "Best since Romanoff, remember?"

He’s never actually met Natasha Romanoff. She doesn’t haunt SHIELD’s lesser facilities unless she needs something for a mission, and most of the time she slips out of view before anyone can register that she’s even swiped in. She’s untouchable. 

Grant never felt untouchable. Not until Garrett. His S.O. showed him how to be strong, confident, to fight for order in a world gone mad. How to be everyone’s type. 

Besides his heart has always felt more like a lump of flammable coal than any precious metal. He liked the violence, learned to work around the burning rage, to bury the boy who’d dreamed of a different life deep below his training and Garrett’s orders. 

So he laughs when his S.O., drunk on victory and the rush of finally working out in the open, tells him he’s better than the best. 

But he doesn’t believe it. 

There’s a very firm, very disappointed voice with a British accent in his head wondering just how he can make that comparison when all of the Widow’s missions are more classified than Coulson’s dance with death. 

He’s got to do something about that voice. Every time he hears it his coal heart crumbles a little bit more. It’s the only secret he’s managed to keep all to himself. 

******

Raina’s eyebrows are their own weapons. He admires her poise as she quirks one at him. 

"If I wanted to work you, I’d ask you about Coulson and his team and how you managed to gain their trust."

He knows it’s a test. While the dust settles, all of the players are going to push, to look for weaknesses and jockey for position. He’s ready for that.

He needs to get rid of that disappointed voice, anyway. 

"I jumped out of a plane," he says bluntly. Images races through his head: Jemma Simmons, throwing herself from 30,000 feet to save her team. He tosses out some garbage about deep cover and selfless acts. "I jumped to save the scientist." 

He can’t bring himself to say her name. The voice in his head is quieter now, but stuck on one repeating chorus.  _You said you would catch me._

He’d told Garrett it was part of the plan, that he’d seen an opportunity. He’s still trying to convince himself. 

He explains how he distracted May, and figured out Skye. He doesn’t mention Jemma again, or bring up the Asgardian enchantress who looked into his soul and saw both love and darkness. 

There are certain things Raina doesn’t need to know. 

******

He plays his part, nurses Skye’s feelings for him and gets the invite to the secret base in Canada. Garrett gives him 24 hours and a kill order. 

Grant walks a little more slowly than usual through the snow. His mask is firmly in place by the time he reaches the coordinates. Skye’s all concern when she meets him at the door.

"Simmons should take a look at you," she says, turning back down the hallway. 

For a moment, he wonders if the work he’s done is strong enough, if he could tell Skye the truth then and there and have her follow him to the real fight. Wouldn’t that make Garrett’s weekend?

But then she starts on about Coulson, and how worried she is, and all he can hear is that her desperate need for love and family has already been filled by their commanding officer. Lost cause, then. 

Mission is a go. 

He plays up the injuries a bit, not wanting to seem too eager to spend time with her. If his heart starts pounding when he hears a certain voice with a very distinctive British accent, he’s enough of a spy to remember to keep eye contact with Skye. 

"Oh, here she is! Simmons! Ward’s hurt, you’d better-"

Then they’re all there. May, hanging back, looking relieved but aloof. Coulson, his wide grin and impossible, foolish trust. Fitz with his reluctant friendship lighting up his face. Tripp of the easy smile and cool, calculating eyes. 

He wants to be done with this lie. He needs the codes. Then he can disappear.

"Grant Ward, you just seem to find trouble everywhere you go, don’t you?" Simmons pushes through the group and glares at the blood running down his face. 

"Ribs, too, Jemma." Skye cuts in, the mixture of adoration and concern on her face boding well for his mission’s success. He’d told her so many times that she was too credulous. She should have listened. 

"And the ribs?" The biochemist shakes her head in dismay. He can smell the coconut from her shampoo, even though he should neither know nor care. "Come on then, there’s an exam room down this hallway."

Skye starts after them, but Coulson calls her over. Ward knows he should keep working on her, get in and out as fast as possible, preserve his cover.

But the girl with the coconut shampoo is beckoning imperiously and he just wants a chance to say goodbye to her. To his idea of her. 

He’s still got 20 hours. Plenty of time.

******

His shirt hangs on a corner of the lab table and her eyebrows are drawn together in a scowl focused entirely at his naked torso. 

She and Raina could battle with only their brows. His mouth quirks up at the thought of it, and she glances at him in surprise. 

"I don’t see what’s so funny," she says, biting her lip. "You’re a mess. I can’t believe the Fridge has been breached. I can’t believe you made it out. I can’t… this is all such a bloody mess."

There are tears in her eyes and he hates that. He doesn’t want them there. He wants, selfishly, for their last moments together to be pleasant. A happy memory he can store away for a dark day. 

"Hey," he reaches out, taking her hand in his. "The team is safe, right? Skye said the plane is even parked and hidden. We’re ok."

"Are we? You’re bruised and battered, and the rest of us…" she sighs and pulls away, putting down her suturing kit. He wants to grab her hand back, he wants whatever he can get. But he’s too well trained to spook her. "Well, we’re all bruised and battered on the inside."

"Jemma." He has never called her by her first name. It’s a lapse. If she and Skye trade notes… but he can’t take it back now, not with her sad, determined eyes locked with his. He feels another corner of his black heart crumble. "What can I do?"

"What you already did," she says softly. "Come home."

She lifts the tape for his ribs and he scoots closer so she doesn’t have to reach so far to loop it around him. They’re almost touching, and he stares down at her brown hair that smells like summer and wonders why it has to be her who haunts his dreams. He'd done an assessment, early on, of the likelihood of recruiting Fitz or Simmons. The engineer was a possibility, but not without her. It had not taken him long to deduce that Jemma Simmons was not to be persuaded of HYDRA's truth. 

Finishing with his ribs, Jemma starts cleaning the cuts on his face. Her hand on his chin is as intimate as they've ever been outside of one heart-stopping dive from a plane.

When the alarm goes off, Grant knows instinctively that he’s been found out. This is the most secure of facilities. HYDRA is as in the dark as he is about its purpose and power. He is the only threat. 

It’s over.

He’s almost relieved. It’s freeing. 

"What could that be for?" The fear in Jemma’s eyes brings him back to earth. They’ll be coming for him. May and Tripp, with Coulson and Skye as backup. If Fitz thinks Simmons is in danger, he’s likely to join in. 

Minutes, then. Time to put Agent Grant Ward of SHIELD behind him. 

But he can’t resist one last moment. 

"I’ll go check it out," he promises, drawing her closer, his eyes on her lips. "You stay here. Lock the door. Don’t open it until that alarm goes off."

"As if I would let you-" she starts, but he knows there’s no time for this argument. He doesn’t want her caught in the crossfire. 

Last memories. Final chance. 

"No," he says. Then his lips crash into hers, and the lies fall away and it’s just the two of them. Her hands grip his shoulders, and her little gasp of surprise melts into a pleased smile.

His blackened heart blazes to life, and he wonders if he could have had this, been this for her if Coulson had recruited him, and not Garrett. But burned coal turns to ash, not diamonds, and there’s no changing who he is. Not even for her.

She breaks away first. “Ward, I don’t — what are we doing?”

His internal clock is ticking down. He’s got a small window to grab Skye and escape, and it’s closing rapidly. “Whatever you like, Agent Simmons.” 

She smiles at him, flushed and at a loss. The next time he sees her, if he ever does, she’ll know the truth about him. It’s hard to look away knowing that those brown eyes will never smile at him again.

But he shrugs into his shirt and straps his guns back on. He’ll explain to Garrett that taking out the team wasn’t an option. Skye’s what they need anyway. 

His hand is on the door when hers wraps around it. “Be safe, Agent Ward.”

He dips his head for one more kiss. A kiss to separate first from last. It’s soft and a bit desperate. He trails his lips up her cheek and kisses her forehead, his eyes squeezed shut in agony. 

Then he clears his mind and opens the door. He doesn’t say anything. 

He doesn’t want to lie. 


End file.
